Applied Computing

Applied Computing is a London-based AI company founded in 2023 with a mission to deliver sustainable abundance for a growing planet through AI that works for the energy industry. The company has developed Orbital, a physics-informed foundation model specifically designed for energy operations across oil and gas, refineries, and petrochemical facilities.

The company's approach combines three core technological components: a time series model that connects to DCS, historians, and LIMS to learn from raw operational data; a physics-based model that extracts governing equations and ensures predictions respect mass balance, energy conservation, and reaction kinetics; and a language model trained on chemical engineering knowledge that reads P&IDs, SOPs, and work orders to provide context and recommendations.

With over $32 million in funding, including one of the largest seed rounds for an AI company in the UK, Applied Computing is working with some of the world's most complex industrial facilities. The company operates in pods alongside ML engineers and data engineers, delivering 2-3 customer deployments per quarter. They emphasize principles of enhancing human judgement, explainability, and physics-grounding in their AI systems.